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Verdi's Macbeth at the Grand Theatre, Geneva

14 June 2012, Geneva, Switzerland

Christof Loy's new 'Macbeth' in Geneva(Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Review by Robert Thicknesse

Verdi had little interest in the subtexts of Shakespeare. (How could he, since he never read the stuff?) What he liked in the plays were ‘strong situations’, laid on with a trowel, and Macbeth in particular also provided a way out of the formal straitjacket of Italian opera: with its witches, soliloquies and scenes of supernatural horror and bloody offstage mayhem, it doesn’t lend itself to the standard scene-building routines of cavatina and cabaletta. His imagination freed and fired by those witches and especially by the glittering malevolence of Lady Macbeth, Verdi produced something whose fantasy and originality he wouldn’t match for a good decade. Shakespeare’s imagery, too, is on a different level from all other opera, and even in gutted Italian all the spooked resonances of daggers, rooky woods, dusty death and the rest come echoing through.

Christof Loy seems largely to have overcome his urge to sneer at Italian opera and now produces detailed, thoughtful and visually arresting dramas. His take on Macbeth was surprisingly classical – a vast, gloomy gothic baronial hall (Edwardian-ish), an enormous staircase vanishing into darkness at the back, the sepulchral light of a Scottish February sunset casting skeletal shadows on the wall, marvellously lit in spectral shades of grey – and it was matched by an elegant, understated orchestral performance by the Suisse Romande under Ingo Metzmacher, full of wormy inner detail, sorrow and mystery, occasionally short of melodrama but rising to thunderous climaxes in the earth-shattering act finales.

The closest to a directorial concept was that Macbeth fantasises the witches and their prophecies into being: it’s his domestics, transfigured in his fevered mind, who tell him what he wants to hear. His obsession with tearing away the veil of the future is prefigured at the beginning by a dumbshow of the sleepwalking scene, a loose scrim between the audience and Lady Macbeth slowly descending the distant stairs in a most Hitchcockian way to the melancholy prelude; bloodied bodies litter the floor, a vision of the final battle.

The show was notable for the Verdian debut of Jennifer Larmore. She has all the notes (except perhaps the final fateful D-flat) and a marvellous flashing-eyed presence, but beautiful singing was never really called for in a role that will always be copyrighted by Callas with her vocal scenery-chewing. In Larmore’s more suppressed interpretation, the hidden hysteria induced by the couple’s actions came through her jumpy, heart-in-mouth toast as she tried to jolly the banquet along, a basilisk look at her crumbling husband, and the final tranced scene where she finally became human and vulnerable.

The jaunty choruses of witches were energetically done by the Geneva chorus, who also put in a stunning turn as the shattered refugees from devastated Scotland. Davide Damiani was the dramatic but vocally unstable Macbeth; Christian van Horn sang Banquo, the piece’s moral weathervane, with great beauty, and Andrea Carè gave Macduff a stirring belt. The ballets Verdi added for Paris were included, not wholly successfully.

Verdi's Falstaff at the Royal Opera House, London

22 May 2012, London, UK

Ambrogio Maestri as Falstaff(Photo: Catherine Ashmore)

Review by Francis Muzzu

Verdi's Falstaff is the Royal Opera's contribution to this summer's World Shakespeare Festival in London. A new production by Robert Carsen (shared with La Scala and the Canadian Opera Company) it is updated to the 1950s; a second Elizabethan Age, and one of comparable social mobility to the first.

It all works well (with the aid of some judiciously tweaked surtitles) and Paul Steinberg's oak-panelled sets look very fine indeed, as does Alice Ford's rather fabulous kitchen. The comedy unfolds naturally and is generally unforced, and Daniele Gatti leads an equally flowing performance in the pit and is attentive to his singers.

Ambrogio Maestri's Falstaff is rightly dominant in both presence and voice, and rules the stage; Dalibor Jenis puts up a good fight as Ford. Mistresses Ford, Page and Quickly (respectively Ana Maria Martinez, Kai Rüütel and Marie-Nicole Lemieux) are sharply characterised and elegantly sung, though their voices are more Glyndebourne-sized; and Amanda Forsythe’s Nanetta and Joel Prieto’s Fenton sound delicious but very small-scale.

Grab one of the few remaining tickets if you can – it’s great fun.

Robert Carsen's new production of Falstaff runs at Covent Garden until 30 May

Toby Spence wins RPS Music Award

9 May 2012, London, UK

Toby Spence at the RPS Music Awards(Photo: Simon Jay Price)

British tenor Toby Spence has won the singer category at this year’s prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards for his ‘vocal beauty and dramatic maturity’ in a range of operatic and concert repertoire, including the role of Lensky in ENO’s Eugene Onegin.

He was joined on the winners’ podium by director Deborah Warner, whose acclaimed production of Onegin for ENO received the Award for Opera and Music Theatre. A community opera by Spitalfields Festival, We Are Shadows, also topped the Learning and Participation category.

Spence’s victory was particularly poignant since he has recently undergone surgery for thyroid cancer, a fact announced only days before the Awards ceremony in London.

Although Spence is expected to make a full recovery, he had to pull out of ENO’s forthcoming production of Billy Budd in which he was due to have played Captain Vere. (He will be replaced by Kim Begley, last heard at ENO as Walter in the UK premiere of Mieczysław Weinberg's The Passenger.)

English National Opera 2012/13 season announced

4 May 2012, London, UK

John Graham-Hall as Eschenbach in Britten's 'Death in Venice'(Photo: Brescia e Amisano)

Report by Classical Music

The UK premiere of Philip Glass’ The Perfect American, an opera based on the imagined last days of Walt Disney's life, was the headline item at ENO’s recent 2012/13 season launch. High billing was also reserved for the world premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Sunken Garden, to a libretto by David Mitchell (author of Cloud Atlas).

Composer/conductor Ryan Wigglesworth takes up the position of composer-in-residence, the first to hold such a post since Mark-Anthony Turnage. Wigglesworth will also be conducting Calixto Bieito’s Carmen, which is described as a ‘new version’ of the maverick Catalan director’s Liceu production.

In 2013, Verdi's bicentenary will be marked by a new trimmed down production of La traviata with no intervals, by the iconoclastic German director Peter Konwitschny, while Benjamin Britten’s centenary brings a revival of Deborah Warner’s production of Death in Venice, starring John Graham-Hall as Aschenbach.

The season also marks a return to productions led by opera and theatre directors rather than celebrities from other creative fields. Highlights include Yoshi Oïda making his ENO debut with a new production of Vaughan Williams' The Pilgrim’s Progress (an opera last seen at ENO in 1951); Rupert Goold with a new production of Berg's Wozzeck; choreographer-director Michael Keegan-Dolan presenting ENO's first new Julius Caesar since 1979; David McVicar leading the UK stage premiere of Charpentier’s Medea; and Richard Jones with a revised version of his Paris Opera production of Martinů's Julietta.

Pulitzer Prize for Music goes to Great War opera

The Pulitzer Prize for Music has been awarded to Kevin Puts for his opera Silent Night, which received its world premiere at Minnesota Opera last November.

Adapted from the 2005 movie Joyeux Noël, Puts’ opera is set during World War I and depicts an impromptu ceasefire negotiated by Scottish, French and German officers on Christmas Eve 1914. For 24 hours, these opposing forces laid down their arms and shared champagne, chocolate, pictures of their families, a game of soccer, and Christmas mass, and allowed each other to bury their dead.

Described by members of the Pulitzer Prize jury as a ‘stirring opera … displaying versatility of style and cutting straight to the heart’, Silent Night is Puts’ first stage work, though he is already well established as a composer of symphonic music in the US.

The Pulitzer Prize was launched in 1943 but has only been awarded for opera on seven previous occasions, including last year's winner, Madame White Snake by Zhou Long.